


The Second

by gawkycosmicsloth



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Coming of Age
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28338552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gawkycosmicsloth/pseuds/gawkycosmicsloth
Summary: "Sokka never had any such conversations with his parents and was never  allowed to sit in on these conversations with Katara. Why would he? He's not a genius or anything. On the spaceship of the family, he was but a scuffmark. Katara was the main feature, of course, but everybody's eyes eventually find their way to the scuffmark and immediately interrogate the owners of the spaceship what they're planning to do about it."Or Sokka is lonely and has a serious inferiority complex and he tries doing something about it this year.
Kudos: 18





	1. Retrograde

Sokka was sitting on the porch in front of his house. The car was packed with all of the things they needed. Summer holidays were over. There's no running from it anyway. The second year of University has to start and it's not going to start without him.

Or he could just make a run for it. His parents were still talking to Katara inside, after telling him in a semi-polite way to step outside for a second.

He held a blade of grass in his hand, absent mindedly twisting it and turning it around, noticing all the tiny munches the grasshoppers and ladybugs must have made around it. There was no wind. It was the kind of silence that would drive anyone insane. His phone was inside, so he couldn't do anything there either.

They must have been talking to Katara about Aang. She told them about her dating, and dating especially this guy.

It could have been worse. She could have dated a jock. But no, instead she just had to go ahead and date a prodigy more prodigious than she herself was.

Sokka never had any such conversations with his parents and was never allowed to sit in on these conversations with Katara. Why would he? He's not a genius or anything. On the spaceship of the family, he was but a scuffmark. Katara was the main feature, of course, but everybody's eyes eventually find their way to the scuffmark and immediately interrogate the owners of the spaceship what they're planning to do about it.

There's nothing they can really do. He's just going to have to continue spending more time by himself in the porch while all the big conversations happen.

She was going to drive the car back to the new building they were moving into for this year. It was a nice place, with a double bed room at the top, with smaller single bed rooms below, with one shared kitchen, toilet and bathroom. They signed the rental contract right before they left the city to come back home for the summer. Of course, his parents knew about Aang at this point in time, and knew that Aang was also planning on living here, which is why the double bed room was a necessary condition on the part of their parents to move in to this house. Sokka and Katara was to live together in the attic-room, and Aang and his friends or whatever could live in their own bedrooms.

Of course what Sokka pre-emptively knew was that the moment they moved in, Katara's things would be in their room for optics and she would then effectively move into Aang's room.

That'll just be swell. Living all alone in a room much larger than any of the students on his budget. Just... fantastic.

Eventually, Katara appeared from the front door, with mother and father walking her out. She hugged both mother and father, and promised she'd be responsible and that she was not going to make them regret the trust they are placing in her.

Father eventually looks at Sokka and said, "I'm trusting you to keep an eye on your sister, alright?"

Sokka chuckled. What the heck was he supposed to say to that? He looked at them and said, "Can I get my phone now?"

Their parents were quiet. His mother, bless her, finally said, "You be good too."

It might have just been better if she didn't bother saying that at all. Or if she said  _ You be good _ and didn't include the  _ too _ .

He got back in, picked up his phone. He looked around. He was leaving his family house again. And nothing had really changed since a year ago. Except Katara can drive this year.

From one shelter to another.

He got into the car, where Katara was already already sitting in the driver's seat, setting up the GPS. He looked at the music player, and it was already set to play this podcast she'd been obsessed about over the summer. 

When Katara is driving, shotgun gets nothing. Well, except for the  _ fortune _ of sitting next to next physics prodigy of her family.

"You ready?" she asked.

"Are you not going to drive if I said no?" Sokka asked. Swallowing what he realized was needless antagonism, he smiled, "Let's do this."

Katara shifted gears and pulled out of their parkway. Sokka looked at the rear view mirror and saw their parents waving. It probably wasn't really happening, but Sokka somehow wanted to convince himself that they weren't looking at him, they were looking at her.

Now here's the thing. Sokka has seen enough movies with  _ jealous sibling rivalry _ as a compelling plot device to know that this sourpuss "they only pay attention to her" attitude he seems to exude is not only repulsive to everyone but also something that is, based off of the semi-comedic tone used in the movies, something that is socially looked down upon. And to be honest, he didn't want to be the butt of the joke more than wherever he was right now.

There's going to be five hours of minimal talking, if not none. Not silent, he had to hear two nerds talk to each other about things nobody really cared about except Katara. She does this thing where she laughs her ass off at something that the douches say, and then looks over at Sokka expecting him to laugh. Most of the time, he will remember to chuckle or something and she'll move on with her life. But sometimes he would forget to do that and then she'll say, "Didn't you understand what they said?"

And there's just something so condescending about that, especially in this context. It makes  _ some _ sense when they're talking about them sitting in the complex analysis lecture and she's repeatedly explaining the same thing over and over to you again and again, but  _ now? _ Not everyone's interested in what the duffledouches are saying, Katara!

Sokka learned a long time ago to not vocalize all of his thoughts, for it would have deteriorated his only relationship.

Sokka will then shake his head, and Katara will pause, replay and look at him again expectedly, until he chuckled along as well. At some point, she should have realized that he simply doesn't give a shit, but eventually, they did reach their apartment, and Aang was standing right in front of the car, with a big goofy grin. Katara didn't even park the car. She stopped it haphazardly, leapt out of the car and hugged him immediately. Sokka looked away before he could witness anything further.

The next six hours were just him and Katara unpacking all of their stuff while Aang and Katara talked about what they did over the summer. Sokka remained quiet, nodded when prompted, and just did the bare minimum, because unlike his sister, he simply  _ had _ the bare minimum. He set his desk up which had nothing but a lamp and an extension socket to charge his laptop and phone from, and helped Katara set hers up with fancier lights, actual books that professors had given her in a bid to draw her interest into their field and a blackboard right next to the desk because it felt more natural to solve physics problems on a blackboard rather than on paper.

After unpacking, Katara immediately went off to Aang's room, right after saying, "The room's all yours, Sokka", and slamming the door shut.

The time was 22:00. He had a nine AM lecture the very next day. A  _ sane _ thing to do would be to get into bed no matter what and fall asleep. And so he did. The first part.

All night long, he could only hear Aang and Katara laughing downstairs, interrupted only by lengthy moments of silence doing god knows what. He didn't necessarily prefer this arrangement, but it was definitely a big plus compared to the last three months of living in the dorm where Aang all but moved into their dorm room and kissed each other in the dead of the night thinking Sokka couldn't hear a single sound, which he did.

He did everything people teach you to to fall asleep - count sheep, drink warm water, listen to thunder sounds - but nothing helped. Eventually, he shut his eyes and his brain from the sheer exhaustion of being Katara's brother, and let the sleepy abyss take him away.

* * *


	2. Dusk

The clock struck 13:00 and the first lecture of the day was magically over. Sokka was sure there was some steam coming out of his head after the onslaught that was the first lecture of the second year. Katara and Aang were sitting right next to him and they seemed unfazed. The rest of the class stood up and left the lecture hall almost immediately, while some of them approached the professor as she was packing her stuff up. Katara was one of them.

Sokka skipped breakfast because he woke up too late because he  _ slept _ too late. Katara had pulled him out of bed effectively and he was a mess in the lecture hall today. Is the lack of breakfast why the lecture was so terrible? Maybe. Is it because the lecturer sucked? Maybe. Who's to say. He looked at Katara walking down the stairs of the hall, as Aang trailed behind her. He did not have the mental strength to keep up with them at this point in time. He packed his notebook, and left the hall immediately. With any luck, Katara might not have noticed.

Sokka walked to the cafeteria, pulled out his tray, placed a plate on the tray and got two slices of pizza (one for breakfast, one for lunch) and a glass of soda. He sought out an empty table that nobody sat on, which was, lucky him, under direct sunlight. He figured that that's probably why nobody sat there in the first place.

He sat at the very edge of the table. He ate the first slice of pizza and his head stopped spinning. For some reason, once he gobbled that slice down he didn't really feel like having another slice. He pulled out his phone, scrolling through Twitter mindlessly without paying any real attention. From time to time, he would feel that tinge of hunger, and he would take a small bite from his pizza, but nothing more. 

He then suddenly felt a violent pat on his head, and saw that he'd been surrounded by Aang, Katara and this time, also Zuko.

"Were you planning on eating lunch without us?" Katara smirked.

"I didn't want to bother you guys," Sokka replied. "You wanted to stay back as much as I wanted to eat."

Katara and Aang sat right across Sokka and Zuko, sat next to Sokka.

"So, are you excited for some  _ electronics _ , Sokka?", Aang asked.

"Not particularly, no." Sokka replied.

"You guys are just starting out with electronics?" Zuko smirked. He studied computer science and, and as far as Sokka was concerned, their degree was all over the place. "Do you have to do it again, Aang?"

"Nah I managed to convince the board that I knew more than I had to from CE103." Aang waved his hand. He had a bowl of salad in front of him. Sokka never really understood how anybody in this day and age could be vegetarian, but he also doesn't really understand why Aang thought that it was enough to do not  _ one _ degree and it definitely not  _ two _ degrees and that the only way to properly live life at a University is to do  _ three _ complicated degrees all at the same time.

"Cool you can help me out with the assignments and the exams then," Katara said. "I don't ever want to touch those in real life. Theory is just too damn cool."

"You should have done math then," Aang said. "We'd still be in the same classes. Then you'd also get to meet that girl I was telling you about."

"Bleurgh, the math degree is  _ waaaay _ too intense for me," Katara continued, forking her way through her spaghetti. "I like it when I can arbitrarily throw away stuff we don't like. Remember the derivation for the blackbody spectrum."

Aang grunted as he hid his face behind his bowl. "Don't remind me. That integral shouldn't have converged, and I will die on that hill."

"As will many theoreticians, I expect."

Sokka sat there watching this verbal volley unfold in front of him. He did not know how to contribute or even participate in this conversation because he had no idea what the heck they were talking about. He scraped through that statistical physics course (which probably was the one to do with blackbody spectrum, who knows) and always gets a shudder through his spine whenever anyone starts talking about any kind of convergence after nearly failing that Real Analysis course that Katara insisted that he take on as an extra module because, in her words, 'it would be fun.'

It was definitely not fun.

And sitting right next to him was Zuko, the only other person who is not really invested in this conversation because it was a physics conversation, and for some reason Zuko doesn't really like physics. On the other hand, Sokka doesn't really understand what computer science is either beyond writing the most basic programs to do the most basic things. He was barely competent at it, and here was Zuko, or as he was labeled after the Hackathon that happened before the summer,  _ The Fire Lord _ , after finishing an entire project before anyone else with only him in his team.

Sometimes Sokka wondered why they bothered to eat lunch with him if they knew he was not going to participate in their conversations. I guess the way the tables were arranged, it would be weird to have Aang, Katara and Zuko sit in a certain way. Odd numbers are never really good, especially when you have a third wheel. Four is better than three because at least now, from an aesthetic point of view, this distribution of students in this table is well distributed. But that still did not help with Sokka feeling like he was the odd one out. Surrounding him were scholar students of the highest merit. Each of them labelled as geniuses by their peers to such an extent nobody wants to really talk to them anymore. All of them prodigies in their own fields, and then of course, there's Aang who wants to be a prodigous wunderkind in math, physics  _ and _ computer science, because why not? But this brings it back to Sokka, who, while isn't a terrible student, or even an average student, was nowhere close to the peaks of intellect that he was sitting next to and, arguably, is his only social group.

"Why am I here?" is a question he asked himself quite often, and not even in the existential sense. Just quite purely in the sense of why was he in  _ this group _ . Why would they even  _ want _ him in this group?

Whenever the group gets into heated discussions, which is often about something really obscure and nerdy that nobody except for these three could give a damn (this time it's about cellular automata), his brain would often start whirring on the socio-existential question.

Well, at least this isn't high school.

Every time his brain goes through the motions, in an utterly predictable cycle by this point, even to himself, he can come up with only two things that are possible explanations.

  1. He's here because he's Katara's brother, and Aang is Katara's boyfriend and Zuko is Aang's... it's complicated, as far as Sokka knows. But the point is that he is here because he is a friend by proxy, not because they actually want him here.

  2. He's here because they need a dummy in their midst to make them feel less insecure about their apparent diminished intellifence from the ideal. Not a total dummy of course, then it would start getting annoying and bothersome. Just someone who won't immediately blank out whenever they're asked a question.

  3. A combination of the two. Because why the hell not. Linear algebra has already taken over large parts of his academic life ; why not his social life as well?




At some point Sokka noticed that he finished his pizza and was basically sipping at his soda absent mindedly as Aang and Zuko got into a semi-shouting match, with Katara looking mildly bemused and everyone around them looking at this table in absolute annoyance. And because of the heat of the debate, the eyes of the neighbours caught only those of Sokka's so despite not even being a belligerent in this automata debate, ended up experiencing collateral damage nevertheless.

"Think I'm gonna bounce," Sokka finally said. "Don't have any classes left, and don't really see any point in me being on campus really. See you guys back at home." Only then he noticed that he might have actually interrupted whatever Zuko and Aang were doing.

"Alright, take care," Katara said, in what was definitely a kind tone, but did not seem to Sokka that way. If anything it just seemed like she wanted him to move out of the way of this absolutely ravishing battle of the brains between Aang and Zuko.

"Yeah, see you." Sokka said once again, even though none of them really  _ good byed _ him. He waddled away from the table as fast as he could so that he doesn't have to sit through the disappointment of nobody saying good bye to him. At least this way, he can convince himself that the reason why he couldn't hear them say goodbye is because he was out of earshot of whatever they said. And then maybe they would talk about how weird Sokka was being for a split millisecond before heading back to the topic at hand.

Sokka placed the tray in the dishwashing area, and left the cafeteria.


	3. Branch

At 5am, his phone vibrated under the pillow, waking him up. He looked at the bed about three feet away from his, still neat and unused. Katara didn't come back to sleep here. Well, she wasn't kidding when she said she was basically going to move to Aang's room.

The sun had barely risen, but he knew that if he had to make it to his class in time, he'd have to leave really early.

Over the summer, Sokka was determined to do something his sister wasn't doing and something his parents  _ didn't _ tell him to do. After a lengthy email conversation with an academic advisor, he took it upon himself to do a minor in mathematics. He considered for a moment if he should do something completely out of left field, like sociology or something, but later convinced himself that he didn't want to fail two degrees at once.

Unfortunately this involves taking a lecture at 8am.

He had a lecture with Katara later at 11, and she wouldn't come to campus till then, and he wanted to hide this from her for as long as possible. In fact, he just wanted to hide this from as many people he knew for as long as he could. There was no real reason why he wanted this to be the case, but he just felt an overwhelming urge to keep this whole affair a secret.

About half an hour before his lecture began, he snuck out the front door of the apartment, and power-walked to the University.

The campus was absolutely deserted. He made his way to the lecture hall, and saw that it was half-filled with students who were half asleep. He was, of course, one of them.

He went all the way to the front row out of habit, and found one girl sitting there. For a moment, he wondered if it would be creepy if this dude sits next to a girl at this early a time. 

"What's the worst that could happen?" Sokka asked himself. "Death," he remembered. "Death is the worst thing that could happen."

He walked up next to the girl and asked, "Is this seat free?"

She looked to the left, right and finally up at him and smirked, "You're kidding right?"

"I was just asking," he fumbled over his words. "Can I sit here?"

"Yeah sure, go ahead."

Sokka couldn't exactly place her. She didn't seem particularly inviting but it wasn't like she was being hostile at the same time.

"I'm Sokka," he said, after a long period of silence.

"Suki," she held her hand out. He shook it.

"So..." Sokka struggled to continue this conversation, and really found no real reason to. The lecturer walked into the room, and connected his laptop into the overhead projector. "8 AMs are a bitch, am I right?"

"Yeah, it's definitely not great. I haven't even had breakfast and the cafeteria is still closed."

"Oh damn,"

"It's alright, it should open at 9am," she turned to him with a serious face. "...if you can trust their website. I'll go grab a bite then."

"Ah, I could join you then, I haven't had breakfast as well," he lied. Yesterday was bad enough that he'd learned his lesson.

"That'll be nice."

The lecturer tapped into the microphone. The lecture was starting. Sokka opened his notebook and hoped to not regret this decision.

* * *

"Looks like you can't trust the website," Sokka said, peering into the closed glass doors of the cafeteria. He saw some of the poor employees still setting things up while the manager is bawling their head off.

"Well, that sucks," Suki sighed, her stomach growling.

"I have some emergency protein bars if you'd like some," he said, rummaging through his backpack.

"You have emergency protein bars?"

"When you can't trust people to feed you, you gotta feed yourself." he held a bar out.

"I guess," she took it.

The two of them munched down their protein bars as they headed back to the lecture hall. They had five more minutes. No need to really rush.

"So, why haven't I ever seen you before?" Suki asked.

"Hmm?" Sokka feigned absent mindedness even though he full well heard the question.

"This is a second year math course and I've never seen you in any of the first year math courses."

"That's because I wasn't in any first year math courses," he said. "Except real analysis."

"Hold on, what?"

"I'm a physics major."

" _ Wow _ ." she rolled her eyes.  


"Yeah I convinced the academic advisor to let me do this course. Proved that I knew enough math from the 'for physicists' courses to not drown in this one."

"...erm, why?"

"Just cause," Sokka realized how much he sounded like his sister just then. He just lied and he knew that, but he felt like this random new girl he just met doesn't need to know how his entire ancestry inevitably led to him making this decision. But now that he  _ lied _ and noticed that this is exactly what Katara always says, he started wondering if Katara has been lying all this while also.

Nah, she's an actual psychopath.

"There's only one other person I know who does these things  _ just 'cause _ " she continued as they approached the door to the lecture hall.

"Who?"

"Heard of Toph Beifong?"

"...should I have?"

"This course?" she said, her hand on the handle of the door. "She did it last year and aced it."

Sokka's eyes must have twitched when he heard that.

They sat in the seats they were originally in. The break was still not over. People were chatting and sitting on the desk arguing about a football match or something.

"She's super smart," Suki continued to gush.

"She must be," Sokka gulped. "Given that this course doesn't exactly feel... easy?"

"Yeah well, I'm sure the lecturer makes it a million times harder than it actually is."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, when I met her last year -- I was in a terrible place, borderline failing, all that jazz. I was in the library and she found me. I told her about my predicament and then she just explained _everything_."

"Okay?"

"In a way that actually made sense," she looked around, went close to his ear and whispered. "Sometimes I think these lecturers teach terribly on purpose so that they can fail half the class."

"That doesn't seem too implausible."

"Not that that's ever stopped her from acing it," Suki leaned back into her seat. "Hey, you should meet her. We have a little study group in the library."

Sokka nodded reluctantly.

"Well 'study group'. It's just the two of us. And hey, if you need help, I'm sure she won't mind you joining us."

The lecturer turned on the microphone that sent a wave of feedback into the students' ears. A more obvious signal that the break was over could not exist. "Let's continue with some more definitions," he spoke feebly into the microphone as he turned back to the wall.

Sokka sunk into his notebook. Great. Another genius who'll make him feel like shit.


	4. In and Out

Sokka followed Suki into the University Library. "Are you sure you don't have any lectures right now?" she asked.

"Not really," Sokka lied.

He looked at his phone. It's 11AM. The  _ structure of matter _ lecture was starting right now, and well... I guess he was skipping the lecture. He pocketed the phone before he could see a disapproving text from Katara asking him where he is.

It is not atypical for Sokka to disappear randomly and reappear later in the day. Katara used to freak out way more back when it was just her and Sokka, but since their social circle has expanded and Katara has learned to let go a bit, she doesn't freak out as much. That said, missing the first lecture of the semester is possibly punishable by death in Katara-land and Sokka didn't want to even know how she's going to react to this.

"So where do you guys usually study?" Sokka asked as his eyes saw the usual desk he sat and worked at in the first year, now hogged by other freshmen.

"Somewhere downstairs. It's not loud at all." Suki said.

The two of them started walked down the stairs and eventually Sokka realized they were heading into the basement.

"I mean, it's a library," Sokka argued. "It's not very loud at all."

"It's loud enough to be annoying," Suki smirked. "Why, where do you work?"

"Upstairs, like a normal person?"

"And you don't get distracted by random people yelling because they  _ finally _ cracked a problem?"

Sokka gulped. He had been that person last year, before the onslaught of the midterms and finals had sucked all of the pathos and excitement out of him.

"But I think throwing yourself into a sensory deprivation chamber isn't gonna help?"

"Have you  _ tried _ throwing yourself into a sensory deprivation chamber?" a voice came from a room ahead.

Suki laughed. "Your hearing is terrifying as always."

They entered a makeshift study space, with a circular table in the middle and two semicircular couches surrounding it. The "room" was walled using empty racks that was used for times when there are more books in the library than there is room upstairs.

And then Sokka saw Toph.

Over the last year, simply because of Katara's ability to meet people who were either just as smart or smarter than her despite being so freaking smart herself, Sokka has seen a wide array of uber-nerds on campus. Despite there being more "geniuses" on campus than he expected, all of them pretty much gave him the same vibes. The variance in their mannerisms, behaviours and everything was really small. And considering that Katara got along with literally all of them, they were all basically Kataras. Imagine walking into a room with fifteen Kataras.

Toph was not like this.

Toph had her bare legs up on the table, gazing up at the ceiling.

"Who's the guy?" Toph asked, not looking at him.

"I'm Sokka," Sokka held his hand out. "You must be Toph."

Toph doesn't even look at him. "We're on first name basis already, are we?"

Sokka's hand stays out awkwardly. Suki nudges him onto the couch and gestures him to put his hand down. "Toph can't see."

"Was he doing that stupid thing of holding his hand out?" Toph laughed. "Sorry bout that partner. I'm as blind as a bat."

Sokka sat uncomfortably. "Uh, I'm sorry."

"Why, were you the reason I'm blind?"

"...no?"

"Then don't be!"

There was a kind of defiance and arrogance in her attitude that didn't help Sokka's sense of crushing inferiority. Look at this person who's super smart, cruising through extremely difficult courses in one of the hardest Universities in his country and  _ oh _ she's also BLIND?

* * *

At around eight PM, the library closes and so everyone is forced to go back home.

"Thanks, by the way," Sokka spoke while walking out. "For including me in your little group."

"Always happy to help," Suki smiled.

"No, really. Literally nothing made sense in the lecture. I just about barely held onto it, and going over everything with you guys really helped me out."

"It's not your fault," Toph said, seemingly out of nowhere. "You're not stupid. If you've made it to University, then you're not stupid. These lecturers and professors just suck. Or they don't care, which I think is worse. They make everything seem harder than it really is so that the crowd can self-select for people who can deal with shitty administration and management because that's what you'll be dealing with if you ever decide to continue down their paths. That's why I don't bother going to lectures. I'm not going to fake modesty and say I'm not smart. I know I am. That's what I can afford to do this. But what these people are doing is  _ bullshit _ and it pisses me off."

Toph stops walked, and turns towards where she thinks Sokka is. "There's no point in being called smart if all you get to do is keeping showing off to people that you're smart. And believe me, I've been there."

Sokka gulped.

"Have you heard of Aang?"

"Yeah, my sister's dating him."

"Oh goodness gracious," Toph put her hands up in the sky. " _ You're _ Katara's brother?"

"...huh?"

"I'll pray for you Sokka." Toph turned to hold Suki so she doesn't walk into a ditch accidentally. "I'm not a very religious person, but damn if I don't pray for you everyday."

"...thanks?"

They reached the bus stop. Toph and Suki got into the bus, and the bus left the station. Sokka stood alone under the harsh street lights.

He walked back home, his thoughts swirling around Toph's final speech as he walked back home.

He stood in the porch of his apartment. He saw the light in Aang's room. He took a deep breath. He mentally prepared himself for the hour long lecture that Katara must have prepared for not responding to her at all. He pushed the key into the keyhole, turned it and opened the door.

Katara and Aang were in the kitchen, cooking their dinner. Well, dinner technically for everyone. Zuko was nowhere to be found though.

"Look who's back," Aang said, washing the dishes and Katara used them.

"H-Hey," Sokka stepped forward.

"You didn't come to class today," Katara asked.

"Yeahh," Sokka cleared his throat. "I was feeling kinda weird, so I went to the library to sleep."

"To sleep?" Katara raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah?"

"You woke up early and left early to sleep in the library?"

"I wasn't planning on it, but yeah."

Katara paused. Sokka stood firmly. "Okay," Katara smiled and turned back to cooking. "Dinner will be ready in like half an hour if you want."

Sokka went upstairs to his room without saying another word.

He shut the door, and flung his bag onto Katara's bed. He fell flat into his bed face-side up.

He didn't know how to feel. Yes, he was bracing for Katara's speech where she speaks as fast the truck the words hit him like. Yes, he doesn't usually like it when she does that. So he was technically grateful that he didn't have to go through all of that. And yet, her just dismissing him disappearing for nearly 12 hours and not responding to any of her messages over that entire period of time resulted in her saying two sentences that were firm at best and disappointed at worst? He didn't know how to parse this behaviour.

I guess she finally stopped pretending to care.

He opened his phone and saw that over the last 12 hours, Katara sent him five messages total.

> Where are you? [10:00AM]
> 
> You skipping structure of matter? [11:05AM]
> 
> You're missing out on cool lasers? [12:03PM]
> 
> When are you coming home? [7:22PM]
> 
> <IMG_00033125.png> [7:55PM]

The last picture was a really dumb meme. Each message corresponded to one fuck Katara was allowing herself to give. Sans the meme, perhaps.

Right before he locked the phone and flung that as well before deciding to change, he saw a new notification.

> You have been added to "Tough Chance 2021". You have been added to this group by a user not in your contact list. Report for abuse?

He smiled as he pressed  _ Accept _ .

> Welcome to the group  ~ Suki [9:03PM]


	5. Bibliotheque

"Why  _ Tough Chance _ again?" Sokka asked.

"Cause I'm saying  _ tough chance _ buddy!" Toph exclaimed.

"...but."

"Also I'm  _ Toph _ . I'm  _ tough _ . Get it?"

Suki and Sokka started laughing.

"Also, do you think it's okay that we're eating food  _ inside _ the library?" Sokka asked.

"Relax," Suki said. "Nobody ever comes down here, so we'll be fine."

Sokka slurped a mouthful of ramen, still a tiny bit nervous. His eyes kept moving to the staircase to hide all of the edible evidence, just in case.

It's been a couple of months since he's adjusted social groups to hang out with the one that doesn't make him feel like a waste of space. He's still not sure why these two have taken him in, but it's definitely not for the same reason as the "Gaang" as he referred to them ironically once but has since caught on.

They continued eating in silence for no discernible reason, but they were comfortable with silences in the middle of conversations. It's also helpful to Toph considering she can rest her ears for a bit. Sokka didn't expect to enjoy silences in conversations but for some reason these extended breaks in conversation was not only calming but also comfortable. For once, he didn't feel like he needed to give a reason for being there - being there was reason enough.

"How are the physics courses coming along?" Suki asked.

"They're okay, I guess." Sokka mumbled. "It kinda feels like a bullshit course."

"A bullshit course?"

"You know, like an exposition dump in movies. Usually you'd have a kind of logical structure to a course right? But now it feels like the guy just wants to tell us things. And it's just... things. And maybe they're not that hard to understand overall, maybe I'm just stupid, but maybe it's also because I don't see how all of these things fit together." Sokka almost choked while he said that. This might have been the first time he ever actually even shared out loud that "he might just be stupid", even as a hypothetical. The words felt salty in his mouth.

"How do you mean?" Toph asked with surprising sincerity.

"When he says something, like in one slide, I kinda understand what's going on. And then he changes slides and I don't understand what's going on anymore. Then after the lecture is over, all I can think is  _ what just happened _ ?"

Suki chuckled. "Yeah I get that sometimes. Talking about the lecture in our little group sessions helps though."

"You should try that with that course," Toph said. "Talk to people."

"Who am I going to talk to?"

"What about Katara?"

"HA!" Sokka yelled, maybe a bit too loud. "You should see her in those lectures. Her eyes are all starry and magical and every time during the break she tries to talk to the lecturer about all these things as though she's already learned about."

"Maybe she already  _ has _ learned about it," Toph reasoned, holding a bit of pork in her chopsticks. "Maybe that's why it all makes sense to her."

"Yeah but it's kinda insane that she expects  _ everyone _ do it right?" Sokka realized at this point that he's probably revealing too much about his relationship with his sister to these people. They're his friends, but he didn't want to scare them away with all of the  _ do you need family therapy _ -worthy outbursts. "Anyway, I'll probably able to make sense of it before the exams, that's always when things start to barely make sense."

Suki sensed the force to change topics and so she complied. "Speaking of exams, the midterm's coming in soon."

The expression on Toph's face gave away that she lingered on the Katara topic for a second too long before she switched to exam mode. "So we'll need to call Wan Shi Tong for some passes then."

"Wan Shi Tong?" Sokka asked.

"He's the janitor in charge of the library. The  _ whole _ library." Suki explained. "He's supposed to be the janitor but he's more like a guardian. You must have seen him around 8PM. He's the one who shoos everyone who overstays their welcome."

"Why do we need passes from him, then?"

"The doors of the library automatically lock after 10PM, giving the librarians and janitors two hours to replace the books to their shelves and clean everything up to make the library useable for the people coming in the earliest," Toph said. "Unless of course, you have a pass, which allows you to manually override the security systems to unlock the doors from the inside."

"Hold on a minute," Sokka said. "We're going to be breaking into this library?"

"Nothing that exciting," Toph said. "We're going to stay in after the library closes. The alarms go off even if you open the doors from the inside, dummy."

"Okay, that doesn't-- why would we be here  _ after _ the library is closed?"

"Because the best time to prepare for a math exam is after 10PM. Science says so." Toph said so confidently that Sokka didn't even think about raising an eyebrow to that claim.

Under normal circumstances, he would stay in at the library for as long as possible till the janitors -- well, Wan Shi Tong -- kick him out. He would then go home and prepare for the exams for as long as he could, even though he knows full well that nothing is going to work after that point.

Katara's made it a point of ridiculing him every single time he does.

To him, at that point what he was doing was not so much studying, but rather anxiety relieving pre-emptive disaster management. Memorizing random examples and random ways to solve integrals on the off chance that the professor goes crazy. Of course, this has never come to fruition and there is nothing logical about this at all, but it is one of the ways he has learned to not have a panic attack before an exam. And you know what worsens a panic attack before an exam? Seeing a fellow student, be so catatonic as to think they've probably know nothing. If they  _ knew _ the kind of mess they were getting into, they would not at all be calm. This is Dunning-Kruger, after all.

But of course, these beliefs were not founded on any kind of evidence, nor have these beliefs changed as evidence arose against it. Katara has always adopted a no-study for 12 hours before the exam zone, and remains worryingly calm during that time period and that has done nothing except aggravate Sokka. Well, it's probably worked wonders for her, seeing as she aces all the exams she puts the pen on and he... doesn't.

And now, Sokka was looking at Suki and Toph discussing these plans to study late into the night and further into the night. From time to time he sees flashes of Katara in Toph's attitude when it comes to studying. And it frightened him. He did not have to want to leave yet another social group because he couldn't keep his emotions in check.

That's the other thing. He's been avoiding the Gaang for as much as he possibly could while on campus. There was no real reason to do it -- they were all living under the same roof anyway -- but somehow there is a compulsion to avoid them as much as he possibly could. To add Suki and Toph to the list of people to compulsively avoid...

In any case, it would definitely help studying with a group rather than studying alone, especially seeing how he was able to easily cut through this course like a hot blade against butter with the help of the study group. It honestly doesn't even feel like they are doing a lot. It's him. But for some magical reason, studying with this group has helped out quite a lot. Sokka is not exactly the superstitious type, but he was clinging on to the idea that there was some magic in this study group that was allowing him to study and live easier than usual. And he was not willing to give that up.

"So what do we need to do in order to get Wan Shi Tong to give us the passes? Money?" Sokka asked.

Toph and Suki only grinned.


	6. Chapter 6

The sky was clear and blue. This was a rare occurrence in the city, that it seemed like everybody wanted to go outside to feel the warmth of the sun on their skin. And even more so, Sokka, Suki and Toph were in the East District, the most crowded part of the entire city. This was the first time Sokka was here, and he never thought he would ever end up in the East District.

The first time they drove up to the city, it was through the eastern entrance, and you could see the run down borderline-slum looking area that was tall, congested, and from his family's sensibilities, horrendously unhygienic. It didn't look very safe. Sokka hadn't planned on spending any time outside of his room or the University library before he got here, and looking at the East District (which at this moment was all of the city he had seen so far), he didn't feel very safe even exiting his room, whatever it looked like.

"A blight, I tell you," his father said, his hands on the wheel, his eyes only flicking away from the highway from time to time. "In such an amazing city, of  _ course _ you have a place that looks run down like this. The poor people that have to live there. Such a shame."

Both Katara and Sokka, in the back seats, sighed, if not slightly sucking air through their teeth at the blatant elitism their father showed. They looked at district however, and didn't feel like going there.

"Now, I know you like to go on adventures, Katara," their mother said, looking through the rear view mirror. "But I don't want you going to the East District. It's not safe. I have never heard anything good come out of that place."

"And who told you stories about the East District, Gran Gran?" Katara joked.

"It doesn't matter who it came from Katara. True or otherwise, I don't want you to even  _ think _ about going there. Sokka, I'm expecting you to keep an eye on your sister."

Sokka sighed, while Katara chuckled.

That was two years ago.

Sokka stood in front of what looked like a confectionery store, with Suki to his right and Toph to his left. "Um, what are we looking at?" he asked.

"You're asking the wrong person, buddy," Toph joked. "But I  _ know _ what you're looking at."

The store had a red banner with  ** SWEETS ** written in bright yellow. He could guess what they probably sold.

The three stepped inside the store, busy and bustling with customers, shopkeepers yelling from one corner to another. He could smell the aroma of spices wafting in from an open door at the very end of the room that probably led to the kitchen. 

"Why are we here?" Sokka asked.

"We need to bribe Wan Shi Tong, right?" Suki said. "He's usually a man of integrity. There was a time when some students tried bribing him with money, and he almost broke their bones."

"How does someone  _ almost _ break a bone?" Sokka asked.

"Like this," Toph said, grabbed Sokka's palm and twisted it till Sokka yelped. "Is your bone broken?"

"No?" Sokka said, with tears in his eyes.

"That's how he almost broke their bones."

"He  _ assaulted _ students?"

"...is what we heard," Suki smiled. "There's a good chance that story has been conflated. He probably just yelled at them, and they're not exactly the kind of people who are used to people yelling at them."

"What does this have to do with us being in a sweet shop?"

"Money, he doesn't like. But bring a Fire Gummy Bear, and he'll start singing a different tune," Toph said.

Sokka's eyes were drawn to the large transparent jar filled with red Gummy Bears. They  _ looked _ spicy. But they were still just that. Gummy bears.

Toph held Suki's hand, and Suki held Sokka's hand. Suki then pulled both of them through the sweaty crowd, which stank of things that Sokka could only imagine. He could only hear his parents telling him off for coming here. Or probably they won't even care, who can tell. Katara doesn't know he's here, and she's not exactly the ratting type anyway.

They make it to the Fire Gummy Bear stall, with a large jolly man performing magic with his fingers on the gelatine that was to be sent to the kitchen behind to mix with the spices that resulted in the Fire Gummy Bears.

"Can I have one medium pack, please?" Suki asked.

"It'll cost you a hundred yuan," he said without even looking.

" _ What _ ?" Sokka yelled.

"This is the only place where you can get the stuff, nobody else can make it. Of course, that hasn't stopped them from  _ trying _ . There was once a shop in the central district where someone tried something like, and then it failed  _ horribly _ ." Toph said.

"How come?"

"Well, rich people don't like food like this, do they?"

The jolly man scooped up a whole pack of the gummies and stuffed them into a bag. He rolled the top to close it, and handed it over to Suki, who held out a single hundred yuan note. "Please doing business with ya!" Suki waved, and pulled them back onto the streets.

"Wan Shi Tong absolutely loves it," Suki said, shoving the pack of gummies into her bag. "And that's all it takes to gain the favour of the Library's Guardian."

"I mean... that was a bit easy..." Sokka gulped. "Why does it have to be us who gets it? I mean, if I just gave him a hundred yuan he can just get it himself, can't he?"

"Where's the romanticism in that?" Suki laughed. "This is a  _ gift _ , and there's value in that, right Toph?"

"Yeah, I guess," Toph said. "But mostly it's because this place is covered with loansharks that he owes a lot of money to. They'll skin him alive if he places on foot in this district."

Sokka gulped yet again. "I thought you said he was a man of integrity. He didn't pay back the loans?"

Sokka's family had a very strange relationship with loans, in that they only took out loans when they absolutely needed to, and that was only when they were a hundred percent certain they could pay it back. "Taking out a loan when you know you can't pay it back isn't borrowing, it's  _ stealing _ ," his father always said, and Sokka seemed to agree.

"This isn't a bank loan kid," Toph said. "These people are monsters. And also, when you're in Wan Shi Tong's shoes, nobody's gonna give you money. Money you need to  _ live _ ."

Toph must have gone for a bit longer than that, but Sokka didn't listen to her beyond that. In the edge of his peripheral vision, he thought he saw someone. He flicked his head immediately and saw...

Zuko? What was he doing here? Zuko was talking to someone who looked shady at the very least. He hadn't seen Zuko in forever. And just as when that thought crossed his head, Zuko's eyes met his.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Sokka immediately, turned back and ran a bit further ahead than them. "Hey!" Toph yelled, "What's the hurry?"

"Ah--ahha, nothing, sorry, I'm just a bit jumpy," Sokka said.

Suki raised an eyebrow, "Are you running away from someone?"

"No, no," Sokka shook his head. "I've just never been in the East District, is all. Heard tons of stories, none of them good. You know how it is."

"Uh-huh," Suki said, a tiny bit suspicious.

* * *

The bribe worked.

Sokka saw the clock tick past 8PM, and didn't see Wan Shi Tong sweeping through the floors to shoo away students who were still there. Well, he  _ heard _ him from the floors above, but he didn't come down to the basement, where the three were preparing for their exam. That said, Sokka still kept his eyes fixed to the staircase going up to the ground floor, awaiting for the Guardian to come down and shoo them away as well.

"Are you done?" Suki asked.

"Ah, no," Sokka muttered. "Still stuck... on..."

"You're still there?" Suki said.

And Soka immediately took a sharp breath. That... seemed harsh. Right?

"That's what happens when you keep looking at the stairs, Sokka," Toph laughed. "Don't worry, he definitely won't throw us out.  _ Yet _ ."

Sokka slumped onto the desk with a sigh of defeat.

"Come onnn, we still have an exercise to go through before we call it a night."

And just for a split second, it was like he was with Katara all this while.

* * *

Sokka slept in.

Slept in is stretching it. What he  _ was _ doing, was staying in bed, while his eyes stared at the distance for several hours is more accurate. He probably woke up around 8AM, when the sun was barely starting to rise. He's woken up enough at 8AM that his biological clock still wants him to wake up at that time. There's some part of him that's trying to get the body out of bed and being a normal functioning human being. But Sokka didn't want to be a normal functioning human being today. He simply didn't want to function. And see what would happen if he didn't.

As is the case when you stay in bed for several hours without eating food, you get a terrible headache, which prevents you from getting out of bed.

Katara came upstairs to check on him just in case, much earlier that day. She was fully dressed up, with a backpack on her back, ready to go to the University. She stood over him, with an expression on her face that he couldn't quite decipher between disgust and pity.

"Are you feeling alright?" Katara asked. She placed her fingers on his forehead. No temperature. She _hmm_ ed to herself.

"Yeah, just..." Sokka sighed. "Don't feel like getting up today."

She sat on his bed right next to him. "In any case, whenever you decide to get up, I've made some spare lunch for you. Don't go hungry. At some point you'll have to eat. You can brood all day if you want, but don't brood while you're hungry."

"That's the sprit." Sokka mumbled.

"I'm sorry?" Katara pretended not to hear.

"Nothing, I'll eat your food."

"Good, I don't want you to starve. Mom and Dad will kill me if they find out I let you do this to yourself."

And he did not eat her food.

From his position in bed, he couldn't really see much except for the sunny day pouring its sunlight into his room. He forgot the close to curtain for maximum brooding. Oh well, he couldn't do that now. He remembered back when he went to the East District with Suki and Toph how he thought it was super rare that the day was sunny. And here was another sunny day. Climate change, man.

He couldn't really see anything except for the wall that was closest to the door to the room. And parts of the floor. Eventually, as the sun rose into the sky properly, he saw the shadows cast by the legs of his desk chair sweep across the room, as it slowly started elongating in the wrong direction, while the sky turned blood orange and the sun began to set. The setting sun shone directly into his eyes, which only made the headache worse.

His phone has been on his desk, far away from his immediate reach. Suki must have sent a bunch of messages already. Hopefully. Probably. There's no real way of saying unless he got up and checked the phone. But if he got up and checked the phone, then he might also find out that Suki doesn't care. That Toph doesn't care.

That nobody cares.

He wouldn't have to find out that nobody cares about him if he stays right here in bed. If a tree falls in a forest and nobody knows about it, then the tree hasn't really fallen, right? Who knows what's going in the real world. Where Katara can dismissively talk about there  _ being _ lunch. Who knows if there really is lunch. Maybe it's just a lunchbox with a post-it note saying "Make food yourself, silly." That's sounds like something Aang might say. Aang might have told Katara to do that, and Katara... who knows, she might have actually done that. It does sound hilarious after all. A nice, neat practical joke that turns into a life lesson - just the way Katara and Aang like it.

Maybe there is no end to this headache. Maybe there is no end to this hunger.

He heard the main door open and slam shut from the ground floor. He heard Katara and Aang talking and laughing. Then a momentary pause. Aang says something. Katara is still quiet.

"SOKKA!" she yelled from downstairs.

Today is the third day.

Sokka couldn't care less.


End file.
